The Gaza Problem

Nonnie Darwish, a former resident of Gaza, says the difficult conditions in Gaza are a direct result of the Palestinian policy of keeping their people down in order to garner sympathy in the international community. According to her, the Palestinian governments are more interested in perpetuating a “refugee” situation then in helping the Palestinian people.

Rupert Murdoch, in a speech given at the AJC, said Israel had two handicaps in the recent Gaza war. The first was the need to reign in its military because it is accountable to a democratically elected government. The second is the superiority of Hamas propaganda over Israeli PR.

And, last but not least, Eamonn McDonagh complains that the Israeli army was held to a standard in Gaza not required of other armies. The American army has killed civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and the reactions have been understanding. But the Israeli army is expected to live up to greater ideals or else this is seen as “evidence of the basic illegitimacy of the Zionist enterprise.”

The thread running through all three of these opinion pieces is the idea that the Palestinians have honed the art of propaganda to perfection and that Israel suffers militarily by losing the public relations war. Although the Israeli government seems to have become aware of this and started to fight it, there is still a long way to go. Even many Israelis have been convinced by Palestinian propaganda and the rest of the world has clearly bought the Hamas line. This makes it difficult for Israel to defend itself and an insecure country cannot afford to make compromises. If Hamas really wants peace it needs to provide Israel with security first.